


Carolyn's Boy

by TheWordsmithy



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Disappointment, Family, Gen, Internal Monologue, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 10:52:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWordsmithy/pseuds/TheWordsmithy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolyn reflects upon her son Arthur and wonders if she hadn’t preferred him to be…well, not so much like the person he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carolyn's Boy

All Carolyn had wanted from Arthur was what she suspected all women her age wanted from their sons. That is, she had just wanted her son to be a nice young man with a regular, fairly well-paying job, a good social life, possibly a girlfriend, and definitely at least average intelligence and skills. So of course, as she watched him saying goodbye to passengers and dispensing facts about bears, she understood the painful reality of the situation. She wished it was either not so painful or not so real. Preferably both.

She couldn’t fault Arthur for not being what she’d wanted him to be. And he was at least a _nice_ boy. No matter how idiotic his current behavior was, at least he did it with enthusiasm and with a degree of what one might call kindness. He didn’t _need_ to tell those departing the aircraft that a female bear was called a sow, but he seemed to enjoy not only giving out information but giving it out as a favor. (“Mum, it’s free stuff,” she could imagine him saying. “People like free stuff, don’t they?”)

Well, overall, he _was_ a disappointment. Carolyn wasn’t sure what she’d expected when he was born, but it wasn’t a man who, even in his late twenties, who was employed by his mother and still lived with her, did well-intentioned but embarrassing things to the people whose money made up his mother’s income, and generally couldn’t be bothered to describe things as anything other than “brilliant!”. He was a nice disappointment, though, and she supposed that, in the end, she wouldn’t trade him for the most intelligent, successful son imaginable. Not now, anyway, that she’d gotten used to him.

But there was a part of her heart that weighed heavily for the joy and comfort in her old age that she could have had but didn’t, and there was another part that weighed heavily for the son she _did_ have, who would never understand how much of a failure he was and in how many ways he was a failure and how he had let his mother down just by being who he was.


End file.
